• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.51 no.5
• /
• pp.540-544
• /
• 2013

During start up and shut down of a proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), the performance and lifetime of PEMFC were reduced. In this study, effect of startup and shutdown were investigated in dead-end type PEMFC using oxygen as a cathode gas with polarization curve, impedance spectroscopy (EIS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Dummy load which eliminates residual hydrogen and oxygen during startup and shutdown operation should be applied to mitigated the degradation of PEMFC performance. At 50% relative humidity (RH) under the repetitive on/off cycling, the cell performance decayed faster than at 100% RH because of corrosion of the cathode carbon support. Water suppling into cell reduced the degradation rate of dead-end type PEMFC during start up and shut down cycling at 50% RH.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.212-217
• /
• 2006

An experimental study on Electro-electrodialysis (EED) for IS (Iodine-Sulfur) process which is well known as hydrogen production system was carried out for the HI concentration from HIx (HI: $H_2O$ : $I_2$ = 1 : 5 : 1) solution. The polymer electrolyte membrane and the activated carbon cloth were adopted as a cation exchange membrane and electrode, respectively. In order to evaluate the temperature effect about HI concentration in fixed molar ratio, three case of temperature were selected to $60^{\circ}C$, $90^{\circ}C$ and $120^{\circ}C$. The electro-osmosis coefficient and transport number of proton have been changed from 1.95 to 1.21 (mol/Faraday) and 0.91 to 0.76, respectively as temperature increase from $60^{\circ}C$ to $120^{\circ}C$. It can be realized that the HI mole fraction in final stage of EED experiments already over the quasi-azeotrope composition.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.437-447
• /
• 2012

Ceria ($CeO_2$) was used to scavenge free radicals which attack the membrane in the polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) circumstance and to increase the duration of the membrane. In order to improve the electrochemical, mechanical and electrocatalytic characteristics, engineering plastic of the sulfonated polyether ether ketone (SPEEK) as polymer matrix was prepared in the sulfonation reaction of polyether ether ketone (PEEK) and the organic-inorganic blended composite membranes were prepared by sol-gel casting method with loading the highly dispersed ceria and cesium-substituted tungstophosphoric acid (Cs-TPA) with cross-linking agent contents of 0.01 mL. In conclusion, CL-SPEEK/Cs-TPA/ceria (1%) membrane showed the optimum results such as 0.130 S/cm of proton conductivity at $80^{\circ}C$, 2.324 meq./g-dry-membrane of ion exchange capacity and mechanical characteristics, and 65.03 MPa of tensile strength which were better than Nafion 117 membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.393-404
• /
• 2014

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been applied to not only military missions like surveillance and reconnaissance but also commercial missions like meteorological observation, aerial photograph, communication relay, internet network build and disaster observation. Fuel cells make UAVs eco-friendly by using hydrogen. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) show low operation temperature, high efficiency, low noise and high energy density and those characterisitcs are well fitted with UAVs. Thus Fuel cell based UAVs have been actively developed in the world. Recently, fuel cell UAVs have started to develope for high altitude UAVs because target altitude of UAVs is expanded upto stratosphere altitude. Long endurance of UAVs is essential to improve effects of the missions. Improvement of UAV endurance time could be fulfilled by developing a hydrogen fuel storage system with high energy density and reducing the weight of UAVs. In this paper, research trend and analysis of fuel cell UAVs are introduced in terms of their altitude and endurance time and then the prospect of fuel cell UAVs are shown.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.50-60
• /
• 2013

High temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) using phosphoric acid (PA) doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) membranes have been concentrated as one of solutions to the limits with traditional low temperature PEMFCs. However, the amount of reported experimental data is not enough to catch the operational characteristics correlated with cell performance and durability. In this study, design of experiments (DOE) based operational optimization method for high temperature PEMFCs has been proposed. Response surface method (RSM) is very useful to effectively analyze target system's characteristics and to optimize operating conditions for a short time. Thus RSM using central composite design (CCD) as one of methodologies for design of experiments (DOE) was adopted. For this work, the statistic models which predict the performance and degradation rate with respect to the operating conditions have been developed. The developed performance and degradation models exhibit a good agreement with experimental data. Compared to the existing arbitrary operation, the expected cell lifetime and average cell performance during whole operation could be improved by optimizing operating conditions. Furthermore, the proposed optimization method could find different new optimal solutions for operating conditions if the target lifetime of the fuel cell system is changed. It is expected that the proposed method is very useful to find optimal operating conditions and enhance performance and durability for many other types of fuel cell systems.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.51 no.3
• /
• pp.325-329
• /
• 2013

The membrane and electrode were degraded coincidentally at real PEMFC(Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells) operation condition. But the interaction membrane degradation between electrode degradation has not been studied. The effect of membrane degradation on electrode degradation was studied in this work. We compared electrode degradation after membrane degradation and electrode degradation without membrane degradation. I-V performance, hydrogen crossover current, impedance and TEM were measured after and before degradation of MEA. Membrane degradation enhanced hydrogen crossover, and then Pt particle growth rate was reduced. Increase of hydrogen crossover by membrane degradation reduced the electrode degradation rate.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.46-54
• /
• 2008

In this paper, a low-cost impedance spectroscopy system(LCISS) suitable for modeling the electrochemical power sources such as fuel cells, batteries and supercapacitors is designed and implemented. Since the developed LCISS is composed of simple sensor circuits, commercial data acquisition board and LabVIEW software, a graphic language with powerful HMI(Human-Machine Interface), it is expected ta be widely used in substitution of the expensive EIS instruments. In the proposed system, the digital lock-in amplifier is adopted to achieve the accurate measurements even in the presence of the high level of noises. The developed hardware and software is applied to measure the impedance spectrum of the Ballard Nexa 1.2kW proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack and an equivalent impedance model is proposed based on the measurement results. The validity of the proposed equivalent circuit and the developed system is proven by the measurement of the ac power losses of the PEM fuel celt stack by the ripple current.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.32 no.5
• /
• pp.41-49
• /
• 2004

The porous media of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is made of deformable materials. The shape of cross sectional area in air plate channels has been changed by structural deformation of the porous media. The uniform mass flow rate and pressure are major factors for safe and efficient operation in the PEMFC. Two kinds of models are provided for the flow analyses. Deformable and undeformable porous media are considered for numerical analysis and experiment of the air plate model. The numerical flow analysis results with deformable and undeformable porous media has some discrepancy in pressure distribution. The pressure differences are measured in order to compare with numerical analysis results. Pressures are measured between inlet and outlet of the air plate. The numerical analysis and experimental results show similar pressure distribution. It is shown that the pressure drops in the two approaches are well matched each other. It is proven that the consideration of structural deformation is required in the numerical analysis/experiment for the PEMFC design.

• Ceramist
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.388-405
• /
• 2018

In this paper, we review about current development of electrode materials for Li-ion batteries and catalysts for fuel cells. We scrutinized various electrode materials for cathode and anode in Li-ion batteries, which include the materials currently being used in the industry and candidates with high energy density. While layered, spinel, olivine, and rock-salt type inorganic electrode materials were introduced as the cathode materials, the Li metal, graphite, Li-alloying metal, and oxide compound have been discussed for the application to the anode materials. In the development of fuel cell catalysts, the catalyst structures classified according to the catalyst composition and surface structure, such as Pt-based metal nanoparticles, non-Pt catalysts, and carbon-based materials, were discussed in detail. Moreover, various support materials used to maximize the active surface area of fuel cell catalysts were explained. New electrode materials and catalysts with both high electrochemical performance and stability can be developed based on the thorough understanding of earlier studied electrode materials and catalysts.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.128-135
• /
• 2011

일반적으로 PEM 연료전지에서는 수분 균형이 시스템의 효율에 결정적으로 영향을 미치기 때문에, 이에 대한 균형(balance)을 잡는 것이 매우 중요하다. 특히, 촉매 층에서 물이 넘치는 익수현상(flooding)이나 건조현상(drying)이 발생하게 되면 연료전지의 효율이 급격하게 저하하므로, 항상 수분의 균형이 잡히도록 시스템을 제어하는 것이 일반적이다. 이 때,수분의 익수현상이나 건조현상은 PEM 연료전지의 용량과 주위의 환경, 즉 온도와 습도에 많은 영향을 받게 된다. 금번 논문에서는 가정용 규모인 3kW급에서 10kW급까지의 PEM 연료전지를 설치하였을 때, 주위의 환경(온도와 습도)이 수분 이동에 어떠한 영향을 미치는 지를 시간에 따라서 시뮬레이션(simulation)한 결과를 보여주고 있다. 결과에서 유입공기의 온도가 $50^{\circ}C$ 이하일 경우, 고정부하가 5kW급 이하이면 대부분이 건조현상이 발생하였으나, 고정부하가 6kW급 이상이 되면 익수현상이 운전시간이 20분 이내에서 발생하였다. 또한 고정부하를 최고 10kW급까지 올린 경우, 유입공기의 온도가 $50^{\circ}C$까지는 익수현상이 발생하였으나 $60^{\circ}C$ 이상인 경우에는 거의 건조현상이 발생함을 알 수 있었다.